c. 1996 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.)

(UNDATED) For far too long, college and university courses about Jews, blacks, women, Hispanics and American Indians were systemically excluded from the academic scene.

While members of these communities have often been a visible presence as students, courses about their unique histories, religions, cultures, and languages were virtually nonexistent.

Critics complained that too much academic attention was given to the writings and exploits of dead white men, most of whom were Christian. What about the other groups and peoples who have contributed so much to our civilization?

Times have changed. In the past 20 years the number of religious, ethnic, gender, and racial studies programs on America’s campuses has increased, attracting thousands of students.

But while college administrators deserve praise for overcoming centuries of intellectual arrogance, one troubling question was repeatedly swept under the ivy: Who is qualified to lead such programs?

Can a faculty member who is not black direct an African-American studies program? Can a male head a women’s program?

Can a professor who is not Jewish lead a Judaic studies program?

A recent controversy involving the Judaic studies program at New York City’s Queens College has focused attention on the issue. The resolution of the issue has implications far beyond the Jewish world.

In early July, Queens College President Allen Sessons appointed Thomas E. Bird, a professor and Roman Catholic layman, to head the College’s Jewish Studies Program for the next two years. Bird, a specialist in Yiddish and Russian languages, has taught in that program since the 1970s.

He has been a national leader on behalf of Soviet Jewry, a safe and secure Israel, Holocaust studies and Catholic-Jewish relations. He has developed strong ties with the American Jewish community. Because of his linguistic skills, Bird has developed special rapport with many Jewish students at Queens College who have recently immigrated to the United States from the former Soviet Union.

Most of his Queens colleagues viewed Bird’s appointment with satisfaction and pleasure. One professor wrote that the choice of a non-Jew meant”yet another barrier had been broken … a true expansion of Jewish studies, moving it outside ethnocentric boundaries.” But two Jewish faculty members were unhappy with the appointment, and, as is usual in such academic dustups, they challenged Bird’s academic qualifications. Bird’s critics went even further, calling the nomination of a non-Jew to head Jewish studies”outrageous”and”denigrating.”One of them likened Bird’s appointment to”making a white man the head of the black studies program.” The criticism escalated. Sessons called the attacks upon Bird”academic guerrilla warfare at its worst.” Bird resigned his new position only two weeks into the job, saying his critics discriminated against him because he’s a Catholic.”The attempt to trash my academic record and standing in the community is … a fig leaf for objections to my being a Gentile,”Bird said.”It is primitive religious bigotry.” The belief that only a Jew can properly educate students in Jewish studies calls into serious question the academic integrity of all such programs. One possible result of the Queens College episode will be the perception that unlike mainstream academic studies, courses relating to women, blacks, Jews, and other groups are trivial and tribal academic boutiques.

The opinion will grow that the true purpose of these specialized academic programs is not vigorous scholarly inquiry, but rather, a thinly disguised means to lift the political, psychological and social morale of minority groups within our society.

And that would be a dangerous exercise in prejudice because it demeans the extraordinary contributions of Jews, and all other ethnic, racial and gender groups to the larger society. It also conveniently erodes the solid academic standards that many of these new programs have been building over the years.

Once the dust settles at Queens College, Bird will resume teaching Yiddish and Russian, something he loves to do, and the college will have a new director of Jewish studies. Life will go on, but the issues and questions raised by this sad affair will not disappear.

MJP1 END RUDIN